Paramount music executive
This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And today we're going all the way back to the year 1929 with a special about a woman, who became a record executive without wanting to be - even without knowing she was gonna be. It's a pretty bizarre story that started in August of 1928 in an office building in Chicago and the lady we're talking about is named Aletha Dickerson. Well she may be forgotten, but she had become one of the most important persons of Paramount, a leading record label for "Race" music, African American music about the turn of the decade.
Before I tell you more about her and her story, let's just play some music that she produced. And I start with a man billed on the label as Dobby Bragg - we know him better as Roosevelt Sykes. And here he is with the Fire Detective Blues.
01 - Dobby Bragg (Roosevelt Sykes) - Fire Detective Blues
02 - Blind Lemon Jefferson - Mosquito Moan
The Mosquito Moan of Blind Lemon Jefferson, another great of twenties blues and this was recorded for the Paramount label under direction of Aletha Dickerson and it's her story that I feature today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman.
During the twenties, the influential producer J. Mayo Williams had been the de facto recording director for race music, African American music, for the Paramount label. Williams wasn't hired by Paramount for a salary, but he owned his own company named the Chicago Music Publishing Company with an office in the Overton building on South State Street, an architectural landmark that still stands, and that was set up by the succesful enterpreneur Anthony Overton, a man born in slavery but by then a manufacturer, lawyer, and banker.
Williams had brought in a wealth of great bluesmen and women into the studios of Paramount, but by 1927 he did his first steps on the outside, with his legendary Black Patti label, and in the fall of 1928 he just walked our of his own office and company for a job at the competitor's, Vocalion.
The legal connection between Paramount and the Chicago Music Publishing Company were unclear. Unclear to me, and probably also unclear to Mayo Williams' secretary, Aletha Dickerson. But all of a sudden she found herself in charge with all the work her former boss did, and simply had to take over.
I'll tell you more about how she managed, but first some more music. This is Ishman Bracey with the Suitcase Full Of Blues
03 - Ishman Bracey - Suitcase Full Of Blues
04 - Papa Charlie Jackson - Hot Papa Blues
(jingle)
05 - Jack O'Diamonds - The Ducks Yas Yas
06 - Cow Cow Davenport - Slow Drag
And you got four in a row - after Ishman Bracey you heard Papa Charlie Jackson with the Hot Papa Blues, then after the jingle the Duck's Yas Yas in a version of Jack O'diamonds and Cow Cow Davenport with the Slow Drag - all on the Paramount label.
Well today I'm telling you part of the story of Paramount Records, and then especially about Aletha Dickerson who served as the somewhat unofficial recording director for the label starting in the fall of 1928. In June of 1929 the Chicago Defender, the Windy City's leading newspaper aimed at African-Americans, writes that she was "a prominent businesswoman and musician", and that she "has charge of Paramount studios and fills the bill well". In the seventies, Aletha wrote several letters, where she tells her own story, to Max Vreede, the author of an important study after the history of the Paramount label.
Now the Defender might call her a prominent businesswoman - she had a completely different perception. The musicians of a loose musical group around Tampa Red named the Hokum Boys came in for a recording session in a studio somewhere else in town, and she just had to find out she had to arrange things. That in fact, she was in charge just when her former boss, J. Mayo Williams had quit. No-one had told her so until three months later.
But the session yielded a major hit for Paramount. So let's just play it. Here are the Hokum Boys with Selling That Stuff.
07 - Hokum Boys - Selling That Stuff
08 - Hokum Boys - Pat-A-Foot Blues
More Hokun Boys with the Pat-A-Foot Blues from 1929. Now this group may be very succesful, Aletha Dickerson told music historian Max Vreede in her letters that she didn't like their music. In fact, the less she liked the music she produced, the more succesful it was.
In fact there was a huge distance between Dickerson and the musicians she produced. In her letters she called herself snobbish - she stereotyped herself as a middle class type of Black woman and she thought these raw bluesmen - to say the least - odd. In fact that's still better than her former employer, as Mayo Williams always said he had a thorough disliking for these illiterate, booze drinking bluesmen. Just later in life, Dickerson learned to appreciate the people she had worked with, and especially Blind Blake, Memphis Minnie and Elzadie Robinson.
Well let's play some more music from that Paramount label and so here is that Elzadie Robinson whom Dickerson later typed as a very nice and intelligent person. Listen to My Pullman Porter man.
09 - Elzadie Robinson - My Pullman Porter Man
10 - Freezone - Indian Squaw Blues
The mysterious bluesman calling himself Freezone in the only recording he ever done - the Indian Squaw Blues.
Now the blues seemed to be the goldmine for the Paramount label. They did popular music, and hillbilly but all were quite unsuccesful, only the Race department brought in the cash for the label.
I'll tell you later how the depression hit Paramount, but first some more music. You'll get one more of Blind Lemon Jefferson, one of the most succesful bluesmen with Paramount. In the mid-twenties, J. Mayo Williams had given him a car, a Ford worth over $700, and with that he travelled all of the country, with his home base in Texas - and on his bank account at some point was over $1,500 of paid royalties.
Listen to his Oil Well Blues.
11 - Blind Lemon Jefferson - Oil Well Blues
12 - Washboard Walter & John Byrd - Wasn't It Sad About Lemon
Blind Lemon Jefferson died in December of 1929 from a heart condition and here you heard Washboard Walter and John Byrd lament his dead in Wasn't It Sad About Lemon, from early 1930.
And from that we go to another great of Paramount's blues artists - Ma Rainey. Here she is with a Sweet Rough Man.
13 - Ma Rainey - Sweet, Rough Man
14 - Ida Cox - I'm So Glad
Ida Cox, also one of Paramount's greats, with I'm So Glad.
Now the story I told about Aletha Dickerson is somewhat inconsistent with other facts and especially around J. Mayo Williams' life. According to most sources, Williams left Paramount but not his music publishing company already in 1927 to set up his Black Patti label, and when that failed the same year he first moved to OKeh and later Vocalion.
One thing is sure and that is that the formal relationship between Paramount and the Chicago Music Publishing Company is very unclear and especially after Williams stepped out. At some point, Aletha Dickerson must have gotten regular salary from Paramount - maybe when she moved to Grafton, WI where Paramount's head quarters were, in 1930 or '31. By then, her husband Alex Robinson was working with her. Of course the Depression was getting deeper and deeper and Dickerson recalled that, well, she heard everyone talk about the bad times, but they hadn't affected her. Until the moment that she got a letter that instead of salary, she would get $20 for each time she brought talent into the Grafton studio. Not realizing how bad the situation had got, she declined.
Now without a manager for their only profitable department, it may well have been that her decision to quit the company, may have helped the demise of Paramount. In 1932 the company ceased activity and it finally closed down in '35. Legend has it that the masters were thrown into the Milwaukee river by angry former employees - but more likely they've been sold for scrap metal. Several divers have searched for remains of the masters under the bridge - but they never found anything. It means that for compilation albums, record companies have to rely on surviving records - and that explains for a lot of shellac noise in today's show.
Aletha Dickerson had to survive the Depression working for a hack songwriter's bureau, where she had to put lyrics people sent in, on music for a fee. It's considered the lowest work for a songwriter but it did pay some money to survive the bad times. Later, for a short time she played the piano on a few recordings for Bluebird under the direction of Lester Melrose, and then J. Mayo Williams, who'd become head of Decca's Race department, asked her back to be his secretary.
Time for some music again - here are the Mean Black Man Blues of Mary Johnson.
15 - Mary Johnson - Mean Black Man Blues
16 - Blind Blake ft. Irene 'Chocolate Brown' Scruggs - Stingaree man blues
You heard Blind Blake on the guitar and the voice of Irene 'Chocolate Brown' Scruggs on the Paramount label with the Stingaree man blues, and with that a little bit of a history lesson has come to an end, of the pretty weird story how the secretary of a record business executive was thrown into the job of her former boss. She survived and managed Paramount's only profitable department for a few years.
Aletha became a valuable source of information when in the seventies, Max Vreede wrote a history book on the Paramount label. She died at the respectable age of 92 years old in 1994.
Now I hope you liked the story and the music and of course you can provide feedback - the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And the story itself, you can read it back from my website, and easiest way to get there is searching the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. This was show 169 in that long list of episodes that I done up to now.
For now, time's up. There will be another shot of Rhythm & Blues next week. Until then, don't get the blues. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!